The Five Boroughs

New York City is made up of five boroughs: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. Each one has enough attractions—and enough personality—to be a city all its own. Learn more about them with this guide.

This month rings in a brand-new year and the welcome news of reopenings in storm-affected neighborhoods following Hurricane Sandy. On January 10, David Zwirner will finally be able to open its storm-postponed exhibitions in its two Chelsea locations. Luc Tuymans: The Summer Is Over departs from the Belgian painter's usual fascination with painting from photographic images that are based in a broader political context, to highlight autobiographical locations in or near his studio, his home, and even a rare self-portrait. At the other gallery, Francis Alÿs: Reel-Unreel video follows children pushing a reel of film like a tire toy along the dusty streets of Kabul. Meanwhile, for Zach Feuer's first post-Sandy show, Nolan Hendrickson, Eddie Martinez and JP Munro will exhibit their vibrant, colorfully textured and largely abstract canvases through January 12.

The art-rich Chelsea neighborhood will even get a new addition this month. On January 23, Hauser & Wirth Gallery will open its second location in the City, this time in the giant space known best for once housing the 1970s roller rink/club the Roxy, with a show of Dieter Roth, the late German-born Swiss artist known for his installations and books that incorporated foodstuffs that would biodegrade over time. His son and frequent collaborator, Björn, will install the show.

Through January 28, the timely MoMA exhibition Born out of Necessity examines how design can provide solutions for problems that arise during a natural disaster or can address specific challenges for people with disabilities. Exhibitions range from a water-collection device to conceptual designs of toys that are designed to aid children with psychological issues. Through January 20, The Skyscraper Museum addresses a different discipline of design—fashion—in Urban Fabric: Building New York's Garment District, a show that traces the boom decade of the 1920s and the entrepreneurs and architects who would define the 18 blocks that would become synonymous with fashion.

Joan Semmel: A Lucid Eye, will open at The Bronx Museum of the Arts on January 27, containing 27 of the painter's charged, vivid nude self-portraits that are as daring in their formal execution as they are revealing in their up-close intimacy. Opening on January 24 at the new Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on Broome Street, Owen Kydd's videos contain an intimacy of another sort. The artist's pieces depict out-of-the-way moments, often bereft of people, that appear like photographs until you look closely, and see the breeze turning a pendant light, the flicker of a shadow on the wall or the rustling of a garbage bag arranged on the wall like a sculpture.

Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt also mines the trash heap for his show at MoMA PS1, entitled Tender Love Among the Junk, where his mixed-media constructions mimic Byzantine opulence using cheap decorative elements of contemporary society—tinsel, sequins, aluminum foil and cellophane. The aptly titled Zarina: Paper Like Skin, opening on January 25 at the Guggenheim Museum, is the first major retrospective of the Indian-born American artist Zarina Hashmi, whose works on paper—such as woodblock prints, etchings and lithographs—transform the fibers of the material with resoundingly human feeling.

Three photography exhibitions this month depict distinct historical moments and often, the memorable personae connected to them. On January 18, the International Center of Photography will open Roman Vishniac Rediscovered, a show that collects 40 years' worth of photographs by the late artist, best known for his documents of Jewish life in Eastern Europe between World War I and World War II. Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg, opening on January 15 at Grey Art Gallery, documents the postwar Beat Generation, featuring the Jewish poet's black-and-white snapshots of William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac and the rest of the gang, along with many self-portraits. Lastly, The Dream Continues: The Photographs of Martin Luther King Murals by Vergara, opening on January 18 at The New-York Historical Society, showcases the work of Camilo José Vergara, who has been traveling across the United States since the 1970s and taking pictures of hand-painted murals of the civil-rights pioneer.

The Lustigs: A Cover Story, now at the AIGA National Design Center, includes more than 500 book, magazine and catalog covers created by revered American designers Alvin and Elaine Lustig between 1933 and 1961. Although the two designed together as a husband-and-wife team, this is the first time their work has been shown together. On January 25, the Lustigs' forebears, the Surrealists, will be on view at The Morgan Library & Museum. The exhibition, Drawing Surrealism, gathers nearly 160 works on paper from the likes of Salvador Dalí, Louise Bourgeois and Joan Miró to examine the importance of drawing and graphic techniques among those artists in the early 20th century.

Briefly Noted

Haeri Yoo
Thomas Erben Gallery
Through January 12
The wild abstract paintings of this Korean artist can be seen as psychological landscapes oscillating between violent darkness and delightful wonder, using a technique borrowed from master calligraphy.

Tyler Dobson
47 Canal
Opening on January 23
The co-founder of the well-regarded Brooklyn gallery Real Fine Arts gets his own show at the Chinatown space, where his New Yorker–style line-drawn cartoons coexist uneasily with found and bought objects installed in and around the premises.

Aaron Aujla, John Pittman, Charles Harlan
Martos Gallery
Opening on January 11
This three-person show of up-and-coming artists should be one of the more humorous shows this month—Aujla once started a mock company for preppy fashion insiders, while Harlan explores the formal qualities of chain-link fences, shingles, ladders and rebar.

John Williams
Brennan & Griffin
Through January 6
For his second show at the gallery, Williams' six new paintings on view form a riot of color and texture, process and gesture, that coheres into a visual feast that's messy, and better for it.

Andrea Way
Pierogi
Opening on January 11
The artist has always combined elements of structure and randomness in her work, with highly ordered grids of patterns arranged and created using spontaneous methods.

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South Street Seaport MuseumPier 16, South Street Seaport, South St. at the foot of John St.; office: 12 Fulton St.Manhattan – Financial DistrictNY 10038